changed.
'There may be someone who's frantic at the moment because he didn't come home when expected,' she finished.
'Yes, the fact that he wasn't carrying a wallet, only that handful of cash...'
'Two five-dollar notes.'
'Suggests he wasn't planning to be out for very long,' Malcolm agreed.
He couldn't remember the young patient's personal circumstances. Someone would have to dig out a file. Why wasn't Sam wearing a medical alert bracelet? With his level of allergic response to latex, he had no excuse not to. There was a list a mile long of common products with latex in them. Balloons, tennis balls, wheelchair cushions, clothing elastic, chewing gum, carpet backing... It went on.
And studies were starting to show that up to forty per cent of people with spina bifida had some degree of allergy to the substance. Sam was one of the worst affected, and the allergy had probably intensified with earlier exposure during surgery.
Malcolm felt a wash of helplessness. He hated patients like this. Hated them, in a way that had nothing to do with his professionalism as a doctor and everything to do with his personal past. He knew why this patient, and this patient's eyes, had stuck in his mind for two years or more. Sam was exactly like Bronny. Full of fight and anger, but fighting all the wrong things.
He had to struggle mightily against the urge to get angry himself and just start yelling at the unconscious man, Do you know you could be dead before we can get a neurosurgeon to deal with that shunt properly? If that's the problem! You haven't exactly given us a lot of time to find out. You could have died of anaphylactic shock, too. Why the hell didn't you take your symptoms and your condition seriously?
He said all of this and more inside his head, but managed to resist saying it aloud. Not much point, when a man was unconscious.
Sam was wheeled off to Radiology a few minutes later, after a search through the files had given them his full name and address. His parents were preparing to come in at once, deeply alarmed. They'd told receptionist Caroline Tully that Sam wasn't living at home any more. He'd been living in a flat on his own for the past three weeks, and he'd forbidden them to get in touch with him or come over to see him more than once a day.
'I only hope he makes it,' Malcolm muttered as Sam departed. The matter was out of his hands now, and into the lap of fate...and the neurosurgeon. 'I'll be so angry with him if he doesn't!'
'Lucy, there's a three-year-old with a fracture just come in with his mother,' Malcolm heard behind him, the words spoken by another nurse. 'Playground accident, apparently. Can you deal with it? He'll probably have to go up to the children's ward before it can be set.'
'Of course,' Lucy answered. 'I'm finished here.'
'And then Mr Warren is supposed to go up to the cardiac ward, but they've just rung to say the bed's not available yet, so can you make him comfortable here for another couple of hours? And after that, you'll have to...'
He didn't hear any more of the continuing list of instructions, just heard Lucy's laugh floating back as she headed out to the waiting area at the front of the department. He suddenly realised that her voice and her laugh had already become two of the sounds he listened for most eagerly here each day, far more than he listened for Heather Woodley's voice, although he'd known and liked Heather now for over a year.
The long column of budget estimates mocked him when he returned to it several minutes later, and the untidy blue mark beside the thirty-fifth number positively jeered. He'd completely forgotten what it meant. Had he marked the last figure he'd added, or the figure he had to add next? For the life of him, he didn't know.
With a frustrated sigh, he pressed the 'clear' button on the calculator and started keying in the figures from the beginning.
CHAPTER FOUR
'Are you ever going to get married again, Mummy?' Charlotte asked, with her last
'There may be someone who's frantic at the moment because he didn't come home when expected,' she finished.
'Yes, the fact that he wasn't carrying a wallet, only that handful of cash...'
'Two five-dollar notes.'
'Suggests he wasn't planning to be out for very long,' Malcolm agreed.
He couldn't remember the young patient's personal circumstances. Someone would have to dig out a file. Why wasn't Sam wearing a medical alert bracelet? With his level of allergic response to latex, he had no excuse not to. There was a list a mile long of common products with latex in them. Balloons, tennis balls, wheelchair cushions, clothing elastic, chewing gum, carpet backing... It went on.
And studies were starting to show that up to forty per cent of people with spina bifida had some degree of allergy to the substance. Sam was one of the worst affected, and the allergy had probably intensified with earlier exposure during surgery.
Malcolm felt a wash of helplessness. He hated patients like this. Hated them, in a way that had nothing to do with his professionalism as a doctor and everything to do with his personal past. He knew why this patient, and this patient's eyes, had stuck in his mind for two years or more. Sam was exactly like Bronny. Full of fight and anger, but fighting all the wrong things.
He had to struggle mightily against the urge to get angry himself and just start yelling at the unconscious man, Do you know you could be dead before we can get a neurosurgeon to deal with that shunt properly? If that's the problem! You haven't exactly given us a lot of time to find out. You could have died of anaphylactic shock, too. Why the hell didn't you take your symptoms and your condition seriously?
He said all of this and more inside his head, but managed to resist saying it aloud. Not much point, when a man was unconscious.
Sam was wheeled off to Radiology a few minutes later, after a search through the files had given them his full name and address. His parents were preparing to come in at once, deeply alarmed. They'd told receptionist Caroline Tully that Sam wasn't living at home any more. He'd been living in a flat on his own for the past three weeks, and he'd forbidden them to get in touch with him or come over to see him more than once a day.
'I only hope he makes it,' Malcolm muttered as Sam departed. The matter was out of his hands now, and into the lap of fate...and the neurosurgeon. 'I'll be so angry with him if he doesn't!'
'Lucy, there's a three-year-old with a fracture just come in with his mother,' Malcolm heard behind him, the words spoken by another nurse. 'Playground accident, apparently. Can you deal with it? He'll probably have to go up to the children's ward before it can be set.'
'Of course,' Lucy answered. 'I'm finished here.'
'And then Mr Warren is supposed to go up to the cardiac ward, but they've just rung to say the bed's not available yet, so can you make him comfortable here for another couple of hours? And after that, you'll have to...'
He didn't hear any more of the continuing list of instructions, just heard Lucy's laugh floating back as she headed out to the waiting area at the front of the department. He suddenly realised that her voice and her laugh had already become two of the sounds he listened for most eagerly here each day, far more than he listened for Heather Woodley's voice, although he'd known and liked Heather now for over a year.
The long column of budget estimates mocked him when he returned to it several minutes later, and the untidy blue mark beside the thirty-fifth number positively jeered. He'd completely forgotten what it meant. Had he marked the last figure he'd added, or the figure he had to add next? For the life of him, he didn't know.
With a frustrated sigh, he pressed the 'clear' button on the calculator and started keying in the figures from the beginning.
CHAPTER FOUR
'Are you ever going to get married again, Mummy?' Charlotte asked, with her last
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